Thomas Day moved from Virginia to North Carolina around 1823. For the next thirty-six years, he made furniture in the village of Milton. Tom probably had white friends, but if he ever felt relaxed about his free status, the icy hand of North Carolina law woke him up. Though he was legally free, he was treated like a slave.

Every month he watched a local militia, the Milton Blues, drill on New Bridge Street. Tom wasn't allowed to join
because North Carolina law stated that free Negroes couldn't serve in the military except as musicians. He couldn't bear witness against a white person in court. Worst of all, he couldn't collect money owed to him by whites unless he owned property. In 1826, North Carolina tightened the screws that held free blacks in place. They ruled that no free African Americans could enter the state. Free Negroes were "unfortunate and troublesome," the legislators fumed,
and "a public nuisance."